Released in the year before the process of ending apartheid began, A DRY WHITE SEASON offers a straightforward portrayal of life, with the Afrikaaners depicted as almost uniformly racist and the black Africans as their largely innocent victims. The only people straddling this racial and ideological divide are history teacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) and his young son Johan (Rowen Elmes).
At the beginning of the film we see du Toit, a former Springbok rugby union player, happily presiding over his learners at his all-white private school. It is only when he learns of the brutal way in which his African gardener Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona) has been murdered by the authorities that his hitherto fixed beliefs in Afrikaaner supremacy are challenged. After an abortive court case charging the police with brutality, du Toit determines to pursue justice at any cost, even at the cost of his family life.
The plot is a familiar one with resonances far beyond the immediate South African context. It could prove equally plausible in an historical drama about the anticommunist era in the United States. We roughly know what will happen in the end, but there are some noteworthy moments along the way, especially Marlon Brando's star turn as a campaigning lawyer where he rehearses his British English accent (previously shown off in the remake of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1962).
Most of the supporting roles are played by British actors speaking a peculiarly nasal form of Afrikaaner English, including Richard Wilson, Ronald Pickup, Paul Brooke and a youthful Susannah Harker (in a pre- HOUSE OF CARDS role). Perhaps the ruling Afrikaaner oligarchy intervened, but the film would have appeared more historically authentic if more locally employed actors had been cast. Nonetheless the black Africans are all played by locals, who are given the chance to speak Bantu as well as English in the film. Susan Sarandon appears briefly as a British journalist, but she doesn't have to do much.
A DRY WHITE SEASON looks a bit anachronistic now, but its sincerity of purpose cannot be doubted.
At the beginning of the film we see du Toit, a former Springbok rugby union player, happily presiding over his learners at his all-white private school. It is only when he learns of the brutal way in which his African gardener Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona) has been murdered by the authorities that his hitherto fixed beliefs in Afrikaaner supremacy are challenged. After an abortive court case charging the police with brutality, du Toit determines to pursue justice at any cost, even at the cost of his family life.
The plot is a familiar one with resonances far beyond the immediate South African context. It could prove equally plausible in an historical drama about the anticommunist era in the United States. We roughly know what will happen in the end, but there are some noteworthy moments along the way, especially Marlon Brando's star turn as a campaigning lawyer where he rehearses his British English accent (previously shown off in the remake of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1962).
Most of the supporting roles are played by British actors speaking a peculiarly nasal form of Afrikaaner English, including Richard Wilson, Ronald Pickup, Paul Brooke and a youthful Susannah Harker (in a pre- HOUSE OF CARDS role). Perhaps the ruling Afrikaaner oligarchy intervened, but the film would have appeared more historically authentic if more locally employed actors had been cast. Nonetheless the black Africans are all played by locals, who are given the chance to speak Bantu as well as English in the film. Susan Sarandon appears briefly as a British journalist, but she doesn't have to do much.
A DRY WHITE SEASON looks a bit anachronistic now, but its sincerity of purpose cannot be doubted.